Re: Incentive to win

[abe@kaleida.com (Masumi Abe)]

At 11:51 PM 8/18/94 -0700, Yugo Yodogawa wrote:

>The more I think about it, though, the more I feel that the novelty of the
>same-heya yusho ketteisen would be lost if we became used to Taka/Waka and
>Maru/Musoyama fighting each other every tournament.  I agree that something
>should be done about the huge stables, but when Chiyonofuji and Hokutoumi met
>for their famous yusho ketteisen, it was a really special moment that would
>have lost much of its significance had they routinely fought each other every
>basho.
>-yugo

It was a very rare and very exciting moment indeed. But yusho-kettei-sen
itself is very exciting even if it is between rikishi who fought each other
in the regular match. I will see that the internal-heya (or civil-war)
matches gives us that kind of excitement more than one time during the
regular days. With adopting the new system, we will gain more during
regular matches than  losing the rare special excitement of rare
yusho-kettei-sen.

People have been arguing that Futagoyama-beya rikishi are overlated, but
civil-war matches may prove that they actually deserve their ranks. They
will have less chance to face the young uprising first comers. And those
young oshi-zumo (pushing sumo type) rikishi is the one causes unpredictable
losses to higher ranked rikishi. Yokozuna and ozeki are more familiar with
sanyaku rikishi than maegashira rikishi, and, needless to say but, losing
to sanyaku rikishi is less embarassing than losing to maegashira rikishi.

When futagoyama rikishi becomes yokozuna, the recommended system will be
more attractive to Sumo Kyokai, since yokozuna will have less chance to
give kimboshi to maegashira rikishi.

On the other hand, under the recommended system, Takatoriki's 10-5 record
and Musoyama's 8-7 record might have been 7-8. If that was the case, they
do not deserve to be in sekiwake rank for Aki-basho than Mainoumi's 9-6
record and Hamanoshima's 8-7 record. 

-Masumi
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Masumi Abe                               阿部　加史（あべ　ますみ）
Kaleida Labs, Inc.                              Tel: (415) 966-0824
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